Occasional musings by Nigel Fletcher, founder of the Centre for Opposition Studies and former Councillor in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. Posts on political opposition, local issues and such other aspects of life's rich tapestry as take the fancy of this tea-drinking, history-obsessed gay Tory.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

In the Name of Gord, Go!Well, the warm glow of satisfaction from the local election results last week has yet to fade, and I'm sure there were many Conservatives who enjoyed a particularly good bank holiday weekend following the results. I felt a bit left out, having been re-elected last year! A great night for us, with gains well over what we had predicted, and enough to give a sense that we're really on the march. Labour's night was predictably terrible, with Ministers reduced to bleating that it wasn't as bad as it could have been (oh dear), whilst the Lib Dems also had a dismal time, losing hundreds of seats, seemingly to their own surprise. They really are going nowhere.

So the week of high political drama dawns, with all Westminster on the edge of its seat to see what the Prime Minister might say about his future on Thursday. Or not. This has to be the longest goodbye in political history, perhaps only beaten by Churchill's years of wavering over handing over to Anthony Eden (but at least there was still some uncertainty there). The risk for Mr Blair is that what should be an announcement of the utmost political gravity will instead be met with a collective "about time too.", or even "so what?".

The truth is, the real drama has now switched to the succession, and with John Reid, the last remaining credible opponent to Gordon Brown, announcing his surprise departure, everyone is waiting for Gordo and speculating about what his Government will look like. Events in Northern Ireland provide the sort of end-of term success story the PM will have been looking for, so now all is left is for him to face the final curtain and exit stage left (sorry, stage centre-left).